Chapter 5: One

The chill of the night deepened around her as life ebbed away. When Lin Zixi drew her final breath, a sudden force yanked the kneeling Ye Can to her feet and dragged her into the darkness.

Ye Can stumbled out of the darkness once more, the same beam of light striking her from behind. She twisted her head and saw Lin Zixi behind the wheel of the massive vehicle again, roaring through her ethereal body before slamming headlong into the unyielding mountainside.

From gasping her last to breath completely gone, death played out in endless cycles before Ye Can’s eyes.

She watched Lin Zixi trapped in the steel behemoth, watched her skull split open time and again, brains and blood congealing in the cold, her body temperature dropping slowly, her life fading into the helpless night. It felt like a knife twisting in Ye Can’s heart, the pain unbearable.

Her own heart seemed like a tile crushed under a boulder—shattered, mended, then shattered again. And through millions of repetitions, it never learned numbness, only the agony of pulverization, over and over.

Ye Can drowned in suffering, finding no moment of release. This was the essence of Avici Hell: torment without respite, calamity without end.

Once, Ye Can had stubbornly believed that if Avici Hell truly existed, it must be the Yan Kingdom of her life—rampant corruption, greedy officials, people starving in the streets.

She had been sickly of mind since childhood, unloved by parents, shunned by siblings, disrespected by servants, enduring constant abuse. That pain had never paused for even a quarter-hour.

She’d thought that brief yet endless life was heaven’s torture for casting her into Avici Hell. But compared to watching Lin Zixi die now, that suffering was a thousand—no, a million—times weaker.

Ye Can clenched her fists, grinding her teeth as she snarled, “Die… a thousand deaths, a million deaths—is this her Avici?”

No one answered, but Ye Can already knew the truth in her heart.

One endlessly dying, the other endlessly helpless to watch—this was their Avici.

The Deity loved to lie. This was still punishment for throwing away their lives.

In a rare moment of clarity, Ye Can thought Lin Zixi’s death shouldn’t bear such blame.

I want her alive. I want her to live well.

After hundreds, thousands of deaths, as darkness swallowed her once more, the kneeling Ye Can lifted her gaze to the sky.

Rage kindled in the ghost’s eyes like flames, igniting her entire body in an instant, burning away the encroaching dark. Wild winds gathered around her, coalescing into a raging gale.

Sand and dust whipped through the air; thick night fog scattered before the howling gusts. A beam of moonlight pierced from above, centering on Ye Can and radiating outward.

Standing amid the tempest, Ye Can roared her defiance at the moon overhead: “I refuse… her Avici… I refuse!“

In the pitch-black void, her solitary voice echoed, swelling to fill the world.

The world seemed awakened by her cry. In the distance, skyscrapers rose from the earth, lights piercing the fog toward the horizon.

The space transformed into a complete world, countless sounds flooding Ye Can’s ears like the Deity’s reply.

“Then connect your worlds…”

“Connect your worlds…”

“And save her…”

“Save her…”

Suddenly, an urgent bell rang out, and Ye Can heard that cold, mechanical voice again: “World entering track… entering track…”

Ye Can jolted, whipping around to look behind her.

A beam of light shattered the darkness, hurtling toward her. Eyes wide, Ye Can watched as the light—on a collision course—suddenly veered, roaring past her in a near miss.

Ye Can stood frozen as Lin Zixi pulled the massive vehicle to a stop by the roadside.

Click. The door opened, and an unharmed Lin Zixi stepped out.

“Hey, what’s your deal? Wandering the highway this late at night?”

Ye Can stared at the hurried Lin Zixi approaching her, all her pain soothed in that instant. She gazed dumbly, drinking her in, warmth flooding the chest once pierced by a blade.

From this moment, the world’s trajectory changed.

A shrill bell pierced the air: “World connected. Initiating Favorability check.”

Agonizing pain slammed into her skull. Ye Can clutched her head and dropped into a crouch, tears welling from the torment.

A flood of memories—not her own—surged into her mind. Her head felt like a waterlogged balloon, heavy and bloated. Before she could process them, Lin Zixi rushed closer.

Lin Zixi crouched beside her, concern etched on her face. “Hey, you okay? Should I call 120 and get you to a hospital?”

Ye Can flashed back to the needles from before and grabbed Lin Zixi’s wrist in panic. “No!”

She looked up. “You… take me… no… take me home.”

—Request Lin Zixi take you home.

That was the voice in her mind from that instant.

Ye Can didn’t want to obey, but the shameless voice threatened: “Disobey, and the connection breaks. She suffers again.”

As the saying went, strike the snake at its vital spot. With her weakness grasped, Ye Can could only comply and voice the request.

But after Ye Can spoke, Lin Zixi froze in place.

Seeing her stare, Ye Can clutched her head and frowned. “You unwilling?”

Lin Zixi shook her head and helped her up. “No, come on, get up first. Your head really okay? Sure no hospital?”

Leaning on her arm, Ye Can stood, tone cold. “No hospital. Home. I’m fine.”

She paused, glancing at Lin Zixi stiffly. “What’s your name?”

“Lin Zixi,” she replied.

“Lin Zixi…” Ye Can repeated it. “Remember this—I will repay you.”

Lin Zixi instinctively sized her up.

Even in the dark, she could see Ye Can’s youthful face was strikingly beautiful. And those clothes screamed wealth—a kid from a rich family.

Ye Can caught her gaze, glanced down, and realized her clothes had changed during the connection—now matching Lin Zixi’s modern style.

Seamless integration.

Fearing disbelief, Ye Can frowned. “You doubt me? I say I’ll repay you, and I will.”

Lin Zixi guided her toward the roadside. “Running into me tonight is your lucky break. A girl like you out at 10:30 PM? Dangerous.”

Hearing the concern in her voice softened Ye Can’s expression. “Not by my choice.”

This must be the Deity’s joke.

Lin Zixi glanced curiously at her archaic speech. “What’s your name? Why walk in the middle of the road at this hour? Bus stop’s just ahead—miss your stop?”

Ye Can never knew Lin Zixi could talk so much, but she didn’t mind. “Ye Can—as in the brilliance of ‘what brilliance is this.'”

Lin Zixi paused. “Pretty name.” Eerily familiar, like she’d whispered it a thousand times in her heart.

She bundled Ye Can into the passenger seat. Slam. The door shut. Ye Can’s eyes anxiously followed Lin Zixi until she climbed in, then she exhaled.

Mimicking Lin Zixi buckling up, Ye Can fastened her seatbelt and leaned back.

From the downloaded info, this “behemoth” was a modern carriage—a car. This world held many oddities awaiting her.

But she knew this wasn’t true reality. Still Avici Hell.

Everything illusory, Lin Zixi the sole truth.

To sustain it, Ye Can must heed the voice’s commands.

From now on, she understood what a “toy” meant.

Lin Zixi started the engine. “Where’s home?”

Eyes closed, Ye Can received the info: “Pine View Villa.”

Rich kid confirmed.

Lin Zixi rerouted toward Pine View Villa. Headlights sliced the dark like blades. Ye Can propped her chin on her hand, gazing coldly out the window at this newborn world.

The cramped car filled with Lin Zixi’s scent—white tea, flooding her nose. Ye Can wrinkled her brow.

Silence hung awkwardly. Lin Zixi coughed lightly. “So why were you out alone so late?”

Near Fanhua Film City. Some rich kid slumming it without a clue?

The voice fed her lines. Ye Can pondered, then said, “Abandoned.”

Lin Zixi nodded, surprised. “Abandoned? How?”

“Self-inflicted misery from my own foolishness,” Ye Can said curtly.

Lin Zixi dropped it, thinking the kid had a prickly temper, tough to handle. Seventeen or eighteen, probably an edgy teen in her rebellious phase—hence the late-night wandering.

Out of elder-sister kindness, she advised, “Don’t stay out alone so late anymore. Unsafe. Your family will worry.”

Ye Can searched her new memories. “No family.” Pause. “All dead.”

Yes—in this fake new world, she was a fabulously wealthy orphan.

Nothing but money. Fit for her past life’s royal status.

Lin Zixi blinked in surprise, a pang of shared loneliness rising. “What a coincidence. I have no family either.”

“Quite the coincidence,” Ye Can said flatly.

At the moment Avici Hell shifted, Lin Zixi’s backstory rewrote too.

Father dead before birth, raised by mother alone. Mother gone at seven, then aunt’s house—hard days, stumbling to seventeen before escaping.

Bad men, bad luck, to twenty-nine: hardships endured, heart unchanged.

Now, on the cusp of better days, nearly killed in a crash.

What else but torment?

Ye Can leaned on the window, staring fixedly at Lin Zixi. “Such coincidence—let’s be friends.”

Lin Zixi didn’t turn. “Sure.” She had plenty of business cards; one for the kid was no big deal.

Lin Zixi reached out and took a business card from the slot beside her, handing it to Ye Can. “This is my business card. Feel free to contact me anytime.”

It was just polite small talk. Lin Zixi didn’t think this arrogant kid would actually reach out to her.

But Ye Can took the card and ran her fingertip over the embossed gold logo on the paper. She tapped solemnly a few times on Lin Zixi’s job title, nodded, and said, “Okay.”

The instant she said “okay,” that cold, emotionless voice echoed in her mind, reporting flatly: “Favorability detected: 1.”

In that moment, Ye Can had gained a foothold in this virtual world.